During the last week, some of the Rocketplane Global team got together in a conference with the International Space Fellowship to talk about their recent progress and changes to the Rocketplane XP design. Having recently revealed that they have been working on the new design George French III (Business Development Associate) and David G. Faulkner (Program Manager) were more than forthcoming to discuss the future of Rocketplane Global and their matured XP configuration.

We discussed some of the changes and the reasons for the new improvements. They told me that with the mature XP configuration there were significant changes to the look and feel of the craft. A Craft that they quote as being â€œsexyâ€

I guess the older I get the more pessimistic I get. We now several winged "suborbital" spacecraft supposedly coming on the market. Whatever this "market" is does it need all these spaceplanes? We have:

I did some searching. I went to the Canadian Arrow website. There has been no new news in quite some time. So I checked Wikipedia.

Quote:

Geoff Sheerin, President and CEO of Canadian Arrow, and Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria announced on May 17, 2005, the creation of PlanetSpace Corporation. It is through this enterprise that Canadian Arrow will complete the construction of their space craft, and within 24 months offer suborbital space flight to aspiring space tourists. Planetspace expects to fly about 2,000 new astronauts within five years of operation. The price is expected to be $250,000 for each flight, including fourteen days of training. Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia is being considered as a launch site, and a contract has been signed with the government of Nova Scotia to provide 120 acres of land for the project.

According to the PlanetSpace website they are in fact continuing to develop the Canadian Arrow. I didn't realize that the Arrow is based on the V-2 rocket. How cool is that?! They are also working on an orbital space system that involves a lifting body spacecraft call the Silver Dart as well.

Since the new Rocketplane design is an all new vehicle and no longer a modified business jet, it is moot. Maybe someone else could modify a 727, but they would be on their own, not copying Rocketplane on a bigger scale.